20VC: Sweetgreen Founder Jonathan Neman on Leadership Lessons from Managing Through COVID, The Importance of Failing Fast and Iterating & How the Best Leaders Bring Together Brand, Capital Allocation and Strategy
The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Release Date: 01/26/2022
The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Oliver Jay (OJ) is one of the most successful sales leaders of the last decade. Most recently, OJ spent 6 years at Asana where he was hired as the company's first revenue leader. As CRO, OJ was responsible for product-led and sales-led revenue and grew the team from less than 20 to over 450. Before Asana, OJ spent 4 years at Dropbox in a period of hyper-scaling for the business where OJ was Head of APAC and LATAM. At Dropbox, OJ scaled the sales team from 0 to 50 while tripling ARR. If that was not enough, OJ is also an independent board member at Grab, the leading Super app in Southeast...
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is the Founding Partner @ and one of the OGs of solo capitalism. Oren has an incredible portfolio including investments in Audible, Houzz, Chegg, Riverside, Tipalti, TripActions, and Firebolt to name a few. Oren is also very unlike any other VC firm, he does not employ any associates, principals, or staff. He doesn't have partners or partner meetings. No LP meetings. No processes. No investment committees or memos. Nada. Oren is doing it differently. Prior to starting Zeev Ventures, Oren spent 12 years as a GP @ Apax Partners where he c-headed their technology practice in their Silicon...
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is the Founder and CEO @ , a leading online employment marketplace that uses AI-driven matching technology to actively connect millions of businesses and job seekers to their next great opportunity. Since co-founding the company in 2010, more than 1.8M employers have used ZipRecruiter to find their next great hire and over 500 million job applications have been submitted through the site. Prior to their IPO last year, Ian bootstrapped the company for many years to many millions in revenue before taking venture funding from IVP, Wellington Management and Basepoint Ventures to name a few....
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is one of the pre-eminent growth leaders of the last decade. As a growth OG, he has been VP Growth @ Airtable, where he led the growth, engineering, and product teams. Before Airtable, Darius was Head of Product Growth @ Facebook Messenger and finally, before Facebook, Darius spent 4 years as Head of Growth Engineering at Dropbox; here, Darius helped drive Dropbox to $100M in net new revenue through Dropbox Business. If that was not enough, Darius is also an active angel and fund investor with a portfolio including Calm, Airtable, Clubhouse, Census and LP checks in Maven Ventures and Long...
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is the Co-Founder and Managing Director @ , one of the leading venture firms of the last decade with a portfolio including Stripe, Snap, Airbnb, Anduril, Canva and many more amazing names. Prior to founding General Catalyst with Joel Cutler, David was a serial entrepreneur building and selling 4 successful companies. In Today’s Episode with David Fialkow: 1.) Everything Great Starts Small: How did David and Joel decide on a Hawaiin beach that they wanted to start General Catalyst? Why did they decide to name it General Catalyst? How did the first fundraise go for GC Fund I? ...
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is the Founder & Managing Partner at . Today with over $2.2BN AUM, Ravi has built a portfolio including Plaid, Duolingo, Hims & Hers, MessageBird, and Scopely. Prior to founding NVC, Ravi was a General Partner at NEA, where he co-led the firm's fintech investment practice and made investments in Braintree (acquired by PayPal), MuleSoft (acquired by Salesforce) and Plaid to name a few. In Today's Episode with Ravi Viswanathan: 1.) Entry Into Venture: How Ravi made his way into the world of venture with NEA? What led Ravi to spin out of NEA and raise $1.3BN for the debut NewView...
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, often referred to as the father of the iPod is one of the leading product thinkers of the last 30 years as one of the makers of some of the most game-changing products in society from the iPhone and iPod to more recently founding Nest, creating the Nest Thermostat, leading to their $3.2BN acquisition by Google. Tony recently released Build, this is a masterclass taking 30 years of product and company building lessons and packaging them for you, check it out . In Today's Episode with Tony Fadell: 1.) Everything Great Starts Small: How did Tony make his way into the world of product...
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is the Founding Partner @ , with over 700 investments, Fabrice has had over 250 exits and built a portfolio including Alibaba, Coupang, Airbnb, Instacart, Flexport, and Delivery Hero, and many more. Prior to FJ Labs, Fabrice served as CEO for three multinational companies; including OLX, one of the largest websites in the world with over 300 million unique visitors per month. As a result of his incredible investing success, Fabrice was named the In Today's Episode with Fabrice Grinda: 1.) Everything Great Starts Small: How did Fabrice make his way into the world of investing...
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is the Founder and Managing Partner @ , a social community of 500,000+ SaaS founders and a $100M venture fund. In the past, Jason has made investments in the likes of Algolia, Talkdesk, Pipedrive, and RevenueCat to name a few. Prior to SaaStr, Jason was the Co-Founder and CEO @ Echosign, backed by Emergence Capital, Echosign was bought by Adobe and is Adobe Sign as we know it today. In Today’s Episode with Jason Lemkin You Will Learn: 1.) Origins into Venture: How Jason made his way into the world of venture having sold EchoSign? What were some of Jason's biggest lessons...
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is the Founder and Chairman @ , one of the with a portfolio including Uber, Stripe, Twitter, Instagram, Twilio, Docker and many more. Why does Chris believe we have bred a generation of asshole kids? What is the right way to negotiate with children? How has that impacted how he manages his team? is the Founder & CEO @ , offering DNA testing with the most comprehensive ancestry breakdown, personalized health insights, and more. How did having kids change Anne's approach to time allocation and risk? is the President of Shopify. Over the...
info_outlineJonathan Neman is Co-Founder & CEO of Sweetgreen, the mission-driven restaurant brand that serves healthy food at scale. Alongside his co-founders, Jon has scaled Sweetgreen from one small restaurant to one of the US' leading food brands with over 5,000 employees, over 140 locations and $300M+ in revenue. If that was not enough, Jon is also an active board member of MeUndies.
In Today’s Episode with Jonathan Neman You Will Learn:
1.) How Jon took the decision to leave his "dream job" as a consultant at Bain to start Sweetgreen? What did his Bain boss tell him that persuaded Jon it was the right decision to leave? How does Jon think about and advise people when it comes to choosing the safe vs the risky path?
2.) How Sweetgreen was not an Overnight Success:
- At what moment did Jon really not think that Sweetgreen would make it? Why?
- How did he deal with those moments of intense stress and pressure?
- How does Jon test for true grit and resilience both in hires and in founders today?
3.) Brand + Capital + Business Strategy:
- How does Jon think deeply about what brand means today?
- What did Sweetgreen do right when it comes to their brand building? How did they marry art and science in the right way?
- What do the unit economics look like on a per store basis? What is the payback period on a per store basis? How has this changed over time?
- How does the store design impact the profit per store? How has store design changed over time?
- What have been some of the biggest lessons in terms of when, where and how to open new stores?
4.) Leading Through COVID:
- What were some of Jon's biggest lessons from leading a consumer brand through COVID
- What were some of the toughest elements for Jon? How did he overcome them?
- How can founders bring people along with their thought process and inspire?
- Who is Jon's biggest mentor? What has he learned from them?
Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with Jonathan Neman
Jon’s Favourite Book: Thinking, Fast and Slow: Daniel Kahneman